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Bill Burke Department of Information and Decisions Sciences “Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Economic Development”
Salisbury University Research Day & Innovation Showcase 2016
Bill Burke • Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Economic Development
Dr. Clifton Griffin, Dean of Graduate Studies and Research
Our next speaker is Bill Burke from the Department of Information and Decisions Sciences in the Perdue School of Business. The title of his talk is “Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Economic Development.”
Thank you.
William Burke, Director of Entrepreneurial Activities and Professor of the Practice of Information and Decision Sciences
Thanks Clifton.
So, thank you very much. I greatly appreciate being invited here, thanks Clifton and Dean Christy Weer, but I also want to thank the deans of the other schools, Maarten, Karen and Kelly, who are here and they’ve been supportive of entrepreneurship for a number of years, I greatly appreciate that and you’ll see some references to what they are doing.
But, so, some of you may think I’m off the case, that I have the wrong agenda up there, so that’s the 2015 Research Day and on that agenda, what I want to point out, is the fact that Dr. Hahn, my colleague, Gene – give a little wave, Gene – was here in the Perdue School talking about 3-D printing. So, when I go back here, you see, research, connect and create. So, Dr. Hahn presented his research, and then a short while later, we were on the same floor of the Innovation Center that he was speaking to is right outside my office, I pass it every day, multiple times. And one day I’m there and Dr. Hahn is leaning over a 3-D printer and Dean Bea Hardy, who couldn’t be here today, she’s at William and Mary, at a conference at William and Mary, I believe, today, and she apologized for not being able to be here, so her and her team had their portfolios open and vigorously taking notes, scratching stuff out as Dr. Hahn is talking about 3-D printing.
So, lo and behold, this small building opened up and what do we find? Makerspace. So, Dr. Hahn was the first one to see it. He contacted me and said, “Hey, Bill, you got to go see this space, it’s unbelievable.” So, how many of you have been to this space? Do you know where it is? It’s in this building. Just a few hands went up. It’s in this building, first floor, far – far from where I’m standing – far right corner, the corner out by, the corner going toward the Perdue School. If you’re sending something to print on the first floor and it goes to the printers, you’ll pass this on your way to the printers.
Anyone from the Makerspace here? I’ve talked to a few, no, I didn’t think there were (Someone in audience speaks and he points to them). You’re from the library, right? So, they’d be more than happy to help you out. So, it’s fantastic, you can see a lot of equipment; Dr. Hahn would die to have this type of … he has one PC drive and three printers. And this is a one-to-one, I’ve been in there a number of times, so it’s a fantastic space. It is available for your use.
Some of the entrepreneurship winners in the competition are also some of the technicians that work in this space, so they want you to use it and guess what? What’s a key word, if you’re a student, what do you want to save? Money. This year, this year, it’s free for your use, free for your use, so a fantastic tool that’s available. And, once again, evolved, it was created as a result of what happened here in Research Day in 2015. So, Bill Burke’s hope, as well as my fellow speakers, our hope is that you’ll be able to find one thing in our presentations today that will be able to be created over the next year.
Research publication, happy, in 2014, so I don’t know how many of you realized when you walked in here, you probably picked up the local, most current publication that’s available to you, but do me a favor, go back to the 2014 version that’s online for your use and be able to see the article on the entrepreneurship competition. So, a lot of what I’m talking about now was starting to be written about in 2014, when we just started very small. At that time, we had a $30,000 competition and a $60,000 competition, I’ll talk later about in some detail. But, if you’re interested in seeing some additional information, Clifton and his team put that together in that research article, so it’s interesting to see how far we’ve come.
Dick, Dick Bernstein, myself and his son, Kevin, all great supporters of the University. One of the things I always like to mention is the fact that 30 years ago, Dick Bernstein had the concept with the administration of the Perdue School in the University at that time put together an entrepreneurship competition, a business plan competition, a $5,000 business plan competition. Many of you may not know we are the second longest continuously running business planning competition in academia today. Number one’s UCLA and number two’s Perdue, Salisbury University, number three is Purdue, the other Purdue, P-U-R, which is interesting, coincidentally.
First 25 years, $5,000 competition, fantastic support by the Bernstein family. Dr. Adams, may be here, he was charged with the responsibility to rethink, reengineer, reimagine the competition. Brought together past winners, judges, faculty members, etc., and I was in the room at that time and we talked about a whole bunch of ideas and the ideas were along the range, more money, more prizes. [Inaudible] Early days a lot of plans were submitted and then only four were selected, so the concept came up, let everyone in and then the other thing was allow the day to be the battleground by which they select the winners. So, great ideas, Dr. Adams wrote up the notes from the meeting, turned it in and then I was given the responsibility to make it happen and, you know, pleased to say that everything that the committee asked for, we were able to put into place.
And we had the opportunity, and I’ll show a video later about it, but we have a, going into the fifth year of entrepreneurship competition, as of last April, we have distributed over a million dollars to entrepreneurs in the region and remember all that started from Dick Bernstein with a $5,000 award. So, the student competition has distributed an excess of $350,000 and then I’ll talk about what transpired. So, as a result of that, student competition going from a $5,000 competition to now a $100,000 competition every year for the students. It is ease of entry, the ticket of entry is a business plan, that’s it. Ticket of entry is a business plan.They do not have to start the business, there should be no fear. John Hickman and I work hard each year going around to the schools, offering information sessions that will be starting up in October and training sessions to get everybody up and running. We’re encouraging all students from all disciplines to participate in the competition. Does anyone here need $1,000 (audience laughs)?
So, imagine that our students could use a $1,000, that’s the smallest prize that’s available within the competition.
So, lo and behold, the first year of the competition there is a lot of excitement about it and then. Sorry, this is the alumni from the Bernstein Award over the first 25 years brought together. So, after the first year, one of the judges said, “Hey, wow, this is great stuff. I know the Ratcliffe Foundation, they’re into this entrepreneurship stuff. They’re doing some things at other schools in other institutions and they’d be interested in doing something for you here.”
So, I had the opportunity to pitch what we’ve just done with the student competition, and lo and behold, we get a letter back saying that they wanted to contribute $1 million over five years for us to distribute to entrepreneurs in the region. So, we run the same type of competition, but offered up to the region. So, that’s how we got to $1 million as of last year. This is an award that Salisbury University plus other schools, for example, American Philanthropy Association Award that they won as a result of their work with us, in addition to the other institutions. They don’t like that type of stuff; they don’t like the fact that they’re getting – they want to be, you know, low-keyed about, they’re extremely humble, etc. But, we gave them, they got the award anyway.
Shark Tank, a small show about entrepreneurship, that’s run on an endless basis on repeats. Here, twice, we are the only location in Shark Tank history to have Shark Tank shop up twice, and that’s as a result of what we’re doing with entrepreneurship. And what’s amazing is that the community and the local WMDT, they’re working on getting Shark Tank here three times, so they said “They didn’t come in 2016, let’s try and get them in 2017.” We’ve had – we had the highest number of applicants showing up here, at Salisbury University, than at all their other locations, except for Houston. So, we beat out some small cities like Boston, San Diego, Denver. Coming here to Salisbury from as far away as New Mexico.
So, a lot of economic development, so a lot of people say “Hey, you’re giving out these prizes, you’re giving out for the first 30 years, it’s been 30 years now, you’ve given out a million dollars, what’s going on now and is it impacting the economy and what are our entrepreneurs doing?” Once again, the requirement in the student competition is they do not have to start the business, but more so than ever before in the last couple of years, our winners have gone on to start their own businesses and make some money. So, Shore Cycles is down the road here, as well as they have a location by University of Maryland where they go by College Scooters. Joost Waffle Company, one of our first high school students to come through the program in an active business making money, etc. And, Zach Kline, one of our student winners and – Zach’s in the middle there, young guy showing off his muscles. So, one of our students as a result of his air lawn care idea, developed a relationship with STIHL, and, lo and behold, he’s in one of their ads. So, some great stuff for us and for Zach. Tim McFadden, a glassblower – one of things we have the entrepreneurship faculty learning community table set up for the reception and one of things we want to definitely do is encourage the Fulton school, the Henson school and the Seidel school to work with us to encourage your students to come forward and do some stuff with entrepreneurship and make some things happen and if, you know, think in terms of scientists are entrepreneurs, musicians and artists are entrepreneurs, we all have a little bit of entrepreneurship in us. And, our most celebrated entrepreneur is Tim McFadden, an artist.
And so, they put together an article, same type of thing, on SU Today, “Tim McFadden: Entrepreneur.” So, that’s available for any students that may want to know the whole story. Tim and his partner, Eric, came back to participate in the Shore Hatchery – so, once again, Tim was one of our most celebrated student winners – came back with his partner to be a two-time winner within the Shore Hatchery with their Zero Gravity Creations. And they developed the company [inaudible], so the City Garage, I don’t know if many of you have heard of the City Garage. Under Armour, anyone hear of Under Armour? Anyone wearing Under Armour? So, Under Armour has supported, within Baltimore, the City Garage. It’s now become the City Garage and the Foundery have become the spaces for entrepreneurs. And, guess what, within their Main Street, within the Garage, is Tapologie. And, so whenever we talk about Robbie Sheehan, Christy and I, we traveled to Baltimore, Annapolis on a regular basis, and we talk about our entrepreneurship competition and we always remind them about the fact that one of our students are in the City Garage, which they are promoting.
The people we are talking are talking about “Hey, this is a great place, the City Garage,” and we say, “Oh, by the way, one of our most celebrated winners are housed in there.” And they all recognized him and the work that they’ve done. And, once again, economic development and I’ll open up a couple of them for you, but Kitchology, many of you may have allergies, well Kitchology takes any recipe and you tell them what your allergy is and they give you back that recipe with ingredients that will replicate it without the ones you’re allergic to.
Frozen Farmer – 404, anyone take 404? So, on 404, up by Bridgeville, there’s a farm stand and now there’s a huge building that one of winners, a former student. Sports Office 365, it’s a sports – anyone do soccer or baseball, which of your kids, etc. or the process you have to go through, that’s what this group does. The most gratifying thing that I’ve seen with this entrepreneurship has been walking through the job fair last year and seeing Sports Office 365 with a booth, hiring our students.
So, when a lot of people are talking about, you know, “Hey, this entrepreneurship, you’re giving out all this money, is it coming back? What’s going on?” It is. Wild Kombucha, an herb-bottling company for their drinks, we’re getting a lot of – we’re working with them, getting a lot of support to getting a lot of traction. They’ve moved into a bigger space as well and our contact with them has only been in the past six months, so it’s some great stuff. I know Oasis Marinas – Christy and I were meeting with, I met right down on the Inner Harbor and, lo and behold, we’re walking along and there’s a sign for Snag-A-Slip, once again, one of our winners. So, let me just, just so you know, just to prove to you that these companies do exist, that I’m not just making this stuff up. I’ll throw these guys out, check these guys out if you’re interested. The others are all legit as well.
Startup Bus was here on campus. That’s our ecosystem, those are individuals that are supporting entrepreneurship here in the community. These are our students, a majority of them are freshmen. This is the Tuesday of the third week of school and we have freshmen pitching their ideas on the Startup Maryland Bus, that’s amazing, that’s [inaudible]. We have the largest showing, as the Maryland Startup Bus going across the state, the largest showing for that.
The – I probably don’t have time for the video, but let me just jump into a few other things in regard to. We have a freshmen entrepreneurship learning community, this is the second year for that. We have a Sophomore Learning Community. Just the other day, brought the Freshmen and the Sophomore Learning Communities together, and the Sophomore Community is mentoring the Freshmen Community, fantastic stuff.
We’re trying to start up a faculty learning community. The ecosystem is out there, in regard to supporting everything that we’re doing. Want to do with the startup morning workshop, in order to do some brainstorming and ways to innovate, so the activities where everyone can get involved and participate in the entrepreneurship and get some excitement. So, let me hit on some vision stuff; this is some of the stuff we’re trying to do. I think you’ve heard about the downtown activities the Plaza building was donated to us, a lot of great activities happening in the past couple of weeks. And I know Marvin’s here and Eric, Jeff and others from his group that are working to put together some floor plans and designs to get that center up and running. Robbie and I are working very closely with them on that. We’re looking to build an on-campus hub for the students to start and Christy, Dean Christy Weer, and her team are working on getting something up and running soon for this semester. So, we create our student feeder system for the downtown space that’s being created. So, not every student’s going to want to start a business, but students may want to find out what this is about and need a place to go. Right now, there’s no place for them to go, they don’t know what entrepreneurship is, etc.
We’re doing, talking about regional economic and entrepreneurship listening sessions. So, we’re looking, Robbie and I are planning to, John Hickman, as well as Memo, we’re going around the region, talking to our economic development partners in various counties and finding out what’s important to them and how we can bring economic development and entrepreneurship together. And then entrepreneurship global opportunities, – so, shout out to Brian, I saw you over on that side of the room earlier – so Brian has his sessions on Tuesday nights. Oh, he is there, Brian, give a little shout out, so Tuesday nights you buy everybody a beer, one beer, two beers, buys everybody one beer. So, buy you a beer to sit around and talk about global opportunities, international programs.
So, I attended this past week, Dr. King give a little wave, so I’m there and I talk about some of my ideas associated with global entrepreneurship. So, and basically what that is is that we like to go to various countries on what we’ll call “mini-mesters,” short trips where we buddy up with the universities that Brian has established and with those relationships, and we find companies or materials that are in that area and endeavor to provide some support to them on that side, but also to bring back here for our students to get, you know, how can we take things from a global economy, bring them back here to Salisbury.
So, I gave that little pitch. Dr. King, you know, shout out to you, “Hey you, business guy, let me tell what I got going, I’ve got this trip going to Ghana during spring break, this is what we do.” And what was my response back to you? “Let’s do it.” So, you know, we want to make that happen, we’re talking – we have Laura Anderson, Silvana Chambers, run a trip in conjunction with Brian’s office and the Perdue School of Business to Costa Rica in the winter and they’re endeavoring to do the same thing, this is going kind of beyond that, we’re actually taking the business skills that they’re learning in entrepreneurship and then trying to start businesses with the goal that over the next couple of years to endeavor to go around the world.
And since it’s a research thing, I have to throw some research stuff in my last slide. My last slide, for those who are getting nervous right now looking at their clocks (audience laughs). So, I’m an implementer and those of you and I greatly appreciate everyone that has attended and shown up and thank you very much for your support and seeing a number of friends and colleagues from across the university, thank you. So, we’re making a lot of stuff happen, we made a lot of stuff happen, but don’t have time just to sit back and get into the research. So, obviously, we have a lot of winners, winners that have won a million dollars. We have a lot of it [inaudible] over 30 years. So, what are the attributes of a successful entrepreneur? Alright, could someone from the other schools or the other programs help us, you know, we’ll provide you the data and the source and, you know, let’s start doing some research and analysis on that.
Business plans, just within the Shore Hatchery, we have over a hundred business plans that have been submitted that we have digital versions of them, that they can be easily accessible and searched, etc. Start reviewing what’s within these business plans that are being submitted. The impact of entrepreneurship centers, not only what we’re doing, but what happens nationwide or globally, what is the economic impact of an entrepreneurship center. Once again, I’m reaching out to you to help me. Let’s buddy up and do some research and Robbie and I, and John, and Memo, will be working on the economic development aspect, with gathering information and as that information is being gathered and we’re doing our thing, you know, what happens, what is the impact that we’re making as a result of listening to what’s going on.
Thank you very much for your attention. I apologize for going over (audience claps).
Audience Member One
Bill, I wondered if you’d comment briefly on the conversation we had with Tedco, a week or so ago, about intellectual property and how we approach that.
Dr. Burke
Thanks and as I’ve said, I’m getting great support from the deans of all the other schools and one of the things that Karen focused on was a Tedco meeting in late August. I wasn’t able to attend, Karen and some others were able to attend and she – well, they started the session, she jumped up right away and said, “Intellectual property, we need the facts, the details, the legal aspects of intellectual properties.” And so she endeavored, she was able to get them to commit to come back here on campus. We brought a number of individuals together in order to hear from them. And just as a result of this meeting, they have said – so, from an intellectual property standpoint, the expertise in regard to intellectual property is not here on the peninsula. We need to go across the bay. Obviously, a lot in the legal profession are not interested in kind of stepping in the summer, coming over here, etc. But, we’re not getting that contact, so Tedco has stepped up, as a result of Karen’s work, to say, “Hey, we will provide intellectual property.” They’ll use their network to provide intellectual property support, advice and counsel, etc. for us.
And Clifton, Clifton was at that meeting as well.
(Looks at an audience member) Go ahead.
Audience Member Two
I know you’ve talked about making this a global movement, but as someone who’s lived in the small towns here and seen the downtown areas dry up as more and more people go to the big-box stores, like Walmart. How do you see entrepreneurship changing in the future? I know a lot of towns are having their own movements with downtown, Fourth Fridays, and trying to encourage people to buy local, but do you see that having – do you see entrepreneurship becoming more popular now or do you think it’s still too much of a risk?
Very good and thank you very much for the question. Everyone hear the question in regard to what is the community theme about entrepreneurship, what is the impact entrepreneurship will make on the local economy? Fantastic question. Lo and behold, we’re building a downtown entrepreneurship center, look at that. Why are we building it? Exactly for what you’re talking about.
So, everyone here has been downtown. If you start looking into the history of this community and I brought up Dick Bernstein early on and the number of companies that are in this area were founded by Dick Bernstein. Dick Bernstein, himself, you know the space, Marvin, that we were looking at, that’s empty space. That’s how Dick Bernstein started, he had an empty space. He couldn’t get $5,000 to buy the equipment and he taped out I want a router here, I want a drill press here, etc. and that’s how his business started over 50 years ago.
So, yes, from the point of – there’s a lot of what I’ll call shared space out there, but there is not a lot of what I’ll call Makerspace, a true Makerspace, so the best example I can give you is what we’re trying to build downtown is not just shared space where you go and you’re able to have free Wi-Fi, have some place to go, place to have a meeting, etc. And not just some small offices for those who need to get up and running. Two keynote spaces or highlight spaces, are garages, so you’ve heard the stories in regard to Apple and HP, it started in a garage. So, we’re looking to build indoor, glass-door garages where you could open the door, go in, some funky furniture, etc. to get your brains going and start to get some ideas and create some inventions and innovations. Mixing up all the students from the different schools, etc. So, bringing them together, generating some ideas. Jim Buss – I threw this idea out to Jim Buss. What did you say Jim?
Dr. Jim Buss, Dean of the Honors College and Associate Professor of History
I want that space.
He said he wants that garage, so Jim is submitting something to Marvin in regard to the fact. He wants an Honors Garage for his students. On top of that, we’re looking to build Makerspace, not Makerspace from the 3-D printing example I gave you here, but everyone here has a fashion idea, right? Everyone has an idea for socks, ties, socks, hats, etc. Our students have fashion ideas, so we’re talking about we’re talking about bringing some sewing equipment; fabric cutters, sewing machines, etc. and guess what? We have a skilled craftsman in the community, so we want to bring those skilled craftspeople in the community into our Makerspace, bring our students, who have fashion ideas or whatever ideas they may have, bring them together and start making products.
And all of a sudden, this becomes a magnet. And, I see Mary Angela behind you, and Mary Angela is responsible for the Center of Extended and Lifelong Learning, so dovetails right into that. So, as we’re bringing the students in and she’s bringing in people from the community to learn these skills, all of a sudden, we have a thriving community. Tremendous support from the mayor, tremendous support from Palmer Gillis and all the real-estate and investment groups in the area. They’re looking for us to take the students from campus, put them in the hub, shake out those that are able to get a business going, move them downtown, highlight them downtown and give them what they need and bring the community in to support all that stuff and then put them into the open spaces that are there. And we’re just talking about Salisbury, as I mentioned earlier, Robbie, Memo, John and I, we’re going to the counties in order to gather some information about it.
It’s interesting that the three of you are in a row there. Christina Gordy, recently in some of the work that she’s gathering from the various economic development groups, she gave me a short analysis, she gave me an analysis, in regard to what she’s done, to pick out, hey, these are some of the industries that are highlighted and where most of the work is being done today in these counties and this is what we should be targeting; dead on, that’s what we should be doing.
Long answer to a fantastic question, thank you very much.
Dr. Griffin
Thank you very much (audience claps).